Primeval

Essentially Jaws moved to Africa, this derivative exploitation flick about a gigantic man-eating crocodile gets some visual snap from effective CGI and Edward J. Pei's edgy cinematography. An American television crew flies to Burundi to track a legendary monster amphibian, but in the wake of civil war between the Hutus and Tutsis also encounters some deadly predators of the two-legged variety. The zingers Catwoman screenwriters John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris give Orlando Jones are offset by his weird speech about the upside of slavery (!), while himbo hero Dominic Purcell (TV's Prison Break) gets to deliver the story's lame ecobabble moral. Michael Katleman directed; with Jürgen Prochnow and Brooke Langton. R, 94 min.
ByAndrea Gronvall